American Wealth Journal

I know so many people who demand great service from their suppliers of goods and services.  Yet, often when the shoe is on the other foot many of these demanding people are not willing to give a little extra to people demanding it from them.  Why is it that as so-called business people we understand that the way to develop loyalty and grow business we need to go that extra mile, and often choose not do it?

I don’t know the answer to that question.  But I was thinking about it this week as I was working a short sale that needed to close.  The problem was that the seller had two judgments that needed to be satisfied.  During negotiations we  included payment in full for those judgments but we did not get the payoff letters yet.  Once negotiations were complete, it was time to get the payoff letters.  Unfortunately while the first judgment holder was very quick in getting the payoff letters to us, the second judgment holder was much more difficult to deal with.

The judgment holder told us that it would take at least seven days to get the third party authorization into the system to be able to talk to us.  After working the system, I was able to find out that the judgment holder would not discuss the payoff directly, that they needed to refer the file back to an attorney through a national attorney referral network, and that would take an additional 10 to 14 days.  So, the normal timeline would be at least 21 days from initial call to a point where we might get a payoff letter.  The problem with this timeline was that it went beyond the settlement deadline given by the first mortgagee.  And that the first mortgagee already told us they would not extend the settlement since the foreclosure sale date was so close.  So to summarize, if we didn’t close on the short sale in time, it would go to the foreclosure sale and the judgment holder with all the red tape would lose the collateral they had to collect the judgment.  When I explained this to the judgment holder the response was, well then there is nothing we can do.  Talk about not going the extra mile, the judgment holder was a perfect example of it. 

So if the judgment holder wasn’t going to go the extra mile willingly, that meant I would have to do it and give them a better incentive to go that extra mile.  My approach required multiple personalities.  A nice guy approach through the front door, and a factual and demanding approach through the back door to create coercive pressure on the people responsible for getting the job done.

While I was being a nice but squeaky wheel on the front end, dealing directly with the people responsible for getting the job done, I was also climbing the corporate latter on the back end that took me from the local branch in NV to their corporate headquarters in CA, to the corporate headquarters of their parent company in NY, to the world headquarters of the parent company’s parent company in London, UK.  The purpose in talking with the people in the CEO’s office in London was to create a high level of priority and pressure as they send me back down through the chain.  The reason this works is because a corporation relies on being able to solve problems at the lowest possible management level.  If that doesn’t happen there is a failure in the system or a failure with personnel.  Regardless, the CEO of a worldwide finance corporation doesn’t want to hear from someone complaining about one of his subsidiaries doesn’t seem to want to be paid a $2k judgment they are owed. 

The strategy worked.  The representative of the CEO put me on hold and gave me the phone number and name of someone in NY who he had just spoken to about the situation.  The person in NY did the same thing until I was back at the local level.  Only now, I was back at the local level with someone who knew that the CEO in London said to get it resolved and quickly.  The next day I was notified that the attorney had it.  I had already been working the attorney referral network, so they too were looking for it.  In fact, from my understanding it had been assigned to the attorney within minutes of receiving the request from the judgment holder.  I also had been working with the attorney who it was going to be assigned to, so when they received it, they already had everything in place.  We received the payoff letter the very next day.

A large company who had no desire to go the extra mile was now bending over backwards to accommodate the needs of this situation.  Obviously we were going the extra mile for our client, and the client knew what was going on every step of the way because we were using the Short Sale Manager system we created for our Inner Circle members and they could see firsthand how much effort we were exerting to serve them without us having to tell them directly (very powerful).  And a process that was going to take at least 21 days was accomplished in 5 days.  We also derived a tremendous benefit by going the extra mile by strengthening our relationship with our client, we were able to build more relationships in the UK, and I personally found out that the CEO of this company is also an Anglican minister who wrote a book on faith and finance.  I got a new found respect for the leadership of this company.  The relationships and information are much more valuable than anyone could ever imagine.

So I ask you.  How much are you willing to go that extra mile?  Are you willing to make that overseas call?  Are you willing to put in a little extra time?  Are you willing to truly put your client first?  I challenge you to do these things.  Your business will be stronger if you do.

Bruce..